Tag: ExxonMobil

Only 17 months before BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig suffered a deadly blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, another BP deepwater oil platform also blew out.

You’ve heard and seen much about the Gulf disaster that killed 11 BP workers. If you have not heard about the earlier blowout, it’s because BP has kept the full story under wraps. Nor did BP inform Congress or US safety regulators, and BP, along with its oil industry partners, have preferred to keep it that way.

The earlier blowout occurred in September 2008 on BP’s Central Azeri platform in the Caspian Sea.

Evidence now implicates top BP executives as well as its partners Chevron and Exxon and the Bush Administration in the deadly cover-up â€“ which included falsifying a report to the Securities Exchange Commission.

Yesterday, Ecowatch.org revealed that, in September 2008, nearly two years before the Deepwater Horizon explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, another BP rig had blown out in the Caspian Seaâ€“â€“which BP concealed from U.S. regulators and Congress.

Had BP, Chevron, Exxon or the Bush State Department revealed the facts of the earlier blow-out, it is likely that the Deepwater Horizon disaster would have been prevented.

Days after the Deepwater Horizon blow-out, a message came in to our offices …more

Two years before the Deepwater Horizon blow-out in the Gulf of Mexico, another BP off-shore rig suffered a nearly identical blow-out, but BP concealed the first one from the U.S. regulators and Congress.

This week, EcoWatch.org located an eyewitness with devastating new information about the Caspian Sea oil-rig blow-out which BP had concealed from government and the industry.

The witness, whose story is backed up by rig workers who were evacuated from BPâ€™s Caspian platform, said that had BP revealed the full story as required by industry practice, the eleven Gulf of Mexico workers â€œcould have had a chanceâ€ of survival. But BPâ€™s insistence on using methods proven faulty sealed their fate.

One cause of the blow-outs was the same in both cases: Â the use of a money-saving techniqueâ€”plugging holes with â€œquick-dryâ€ cement.

By hiding the disastrous failure of its penny-pinching cement process in 2008, BP was able to continue to use the dangerous methods in the Gulf of Mexicoâ€”causing the worst oil spill in U.S. history. April 20 marks the second anniversary of the Gulf oil disaster.

There were several failures in common to the two incidents identified by the eyewitness. He is an industry insider whose identity and expertise we have confirmed. His name and that of other witnesses we contacted must be withheld for their safety.

The failures revolve around the use of â€œquick-dryâ€ cement, the uselessness of blow-out preventers, â€œmayhemâ€ in evacuation procedures and an atmosphere of fear which prevents workers from blowing the whistle on safety problems.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., president of Waterkeeper Alliance and senior attorney for Natural Resources Defense Council, said, â€œWe have laws that make it illegal to hide this kind of information. At the very least, these are lies by omission. When you juxtapose their knowledge of this incident upon the oil companies constant and persistent assurances of safety to regulators, investigators and shareholders, you have all the elements to prove that their concealment of the information was criminal.â€ …more

â€œThey threatened me. Last night I got a call andÂ they threatened me. If I talked.â€

â€œPig Man #2,â€ a pipeline industry insider, had a good reasonÂ to be afraid.Â Â He was about to blowÂ the whistle on a fraud, information that could blow away the XLÂ KeystoneÂ Pipeline project.

His information: The software for the crucial piece of pipelineÂ safety equipment, the â€œSmart PIG,â€ has a flaw known to the industry butÂ concealed from regulators.

The flaw allows cracks, leaks and corrosion to go undetected â€“ and that saves the industry billions of dollars in pipe replacements.Â Â But thereâ€™s a catch. Pipes withÂ cracks and leaks can explodeÂ â€“ and kill.

Federal law requires the oil and gas industry to run a PIG,Â a Pipeline Inspection Gauge, through big oil and gas pipelines.Â Â The robot porker, tethered to a GPS,Â beepsÂ and boops as it rolls through, electronically squealing when it finds dangers.

Only 17 months before BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig suffered a deadly blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, another BP deepwater oil platform also blew out.

You’ve heard and seen much about the Gulf disaster that killed 11 BP workers. If you have not heard about the earlier blowout, it’s because BP has kept the full story under wraps. Nor did BP inform Congress or US safety regulators, and BP, along with its oil industry partners, have preferred to keep it that way.

The earlier blowout occurred in September 2008 on BP’s Central Azeri platform in the Caspian Sea.

As one memo marked “secret” puts it, “Given the explosive potential, BP was quite fortunate to have been able to evacuate everyone safely and to prevent any gas ignition.” The Caspian oil platform was a spark away from exploding, but luck was with the 211 rig workers.

Pluto rolled over on the rug and looked at me as if to say,Â Don’t we already knowÂ this?

Then PBS told us â€” get ready â€” that BP has neglectedÂ warnings about oilÂ safetyÂ for years!

That’s true.Â Â But so has PBS.Â Â TheÂ Petroleum Broadcast System has turned a blind eye to BP perfidy for decades.

If the broadcast had come six monthsÂ before the Gulf blow-out, after the 2005 BP RefineryÂ explosion in Texas, or after the 2006 Alaska pipeline disaster, or after the years ofÂ government fines that flashedÂ DANGER-DANGER, I would say, “Damn, thatÂ Frontline sure is courageous.”Â Â But six monthsÂ after the blow-out, PBS has shown us it only has the courage to shoot the wounded.

It was already two years after the spill and Exxon had crowed that Mother Nature had happily cleaned up their stinking oil mess for them. It was a lie. But the media wouldn’t question the bald-faced bullshit. And who the hell was going to investigate Exxon’s claim way out in some godforsaken Native village in the Prince William Sound?

So I convinced the Natives to fly the lazy-ass reporters out to Sleepy Bay on rented float planes to see the oil that Exxon said wasn’t there.

The reporters looked, but didn’t see it, because it was three inches under their feet, under the shingle rock of the icy beach. Gail pulled out her hand and now the whole place smelled like a gas station. The network crews wanted to puke. And now, with their eyes open, they saw the oil, the vile feces-colored smear across the glaciated ridge faces, the poisonous “bathtub ring” that ran for miles and miles at the high tide level. …more

Nineteen goddamn years is enough. Iâ€™m sorry if you donâ€™t like my language, but when I think about what they did to Paul Kompkoff, Iâ€™m in no mood to nicey-nice words.

Next month marks 19 years since the Exxon Valdez dumped its load of crude oil across the Prince William Sound, Alaska. A big gooey load of this crude spilled over the lands of the Chenega Natives. Paul Kompkoff was a seal-hunter for the village. That is, until Exxonâ€™s ship killed the seal and poisoned the rest of Chenegaâ€™s food supply.

While cameras rolled, Exxon executives promised theyâ€™d compensate everyone. Today, before the US Supreme Court, the big oil companyâ€™s lawyers argued that they shouldnâ€™t have to pay Paul or other fishermen the damages ordered by the courts.

They canâ€™t pay Paul anyway. Heâ€™s dead.

That was part of Exxonâ€™s plan. They told me that. In 1990 and 1991, I worked for the Chenega and Chugach Natives of Alaska on trying to get Exxon to pay up to save the remote villages of the Sound. Exxonâ€™s response was, â€œWe can hold out in court until youâ€™re all dead.â€

Nice guys. But, hell, they were right, werenâ€™t they?

But Exxon didnâ€™t do it alone. They had enablers. One was a failed oil driller named â€œDubya.â€ Exxon was the second largest contributor to George W. Bushâ€™s political career. Enron was firstr. They were a team, Exxon and Enron.

To protect their corporate backsides, Enron’s Chairman Ken Lay, prior to his felony convictions, funded a group called Texans for Law Suit Reform. The idea was to prevent consumers, defrauded stockholders and devastated Natives from suing felonious corporations and their chiefs.

When Dubya went to Washington, Enron and Exxon got their golden pass in the appointment of Chief Justice John Roberts. On Wednesday, as the court heard Exxonâ€™s latest stall, Roberts said, in defense of Exxonâ€™s behavior in Alaska, â€œWhat more can a corporation do?â€

The answer, Your Honor, is plenty.

For starters, Mr. Roberts, Exxon could have turned on the radar. What? On the night the Exxon …more

Good news from the edge of reality: Exxon has changed its mind. It was only days ago that they were employing the help of their subsidiary known as the Department of Homeland Security to put a Gitmo scare into Greg Palast and Matt Pascarella for filming the oil powerhouse’s Baton Rouge refinery — and about a thousand Katrina refugees being held behind barbed wire near it …more

September 14th, 2006Forget the orange suit. Exxon Mobil Corporation, which admits it was behind the criminal complaint brought by Homeland Security against me and television producer Matt Pascarella, has informed me that the oil company will no longer push charges that Pascarella and I threatened “critical infrastructure.”

It’s true. It’s weird. It’s nuts. The Department of Homeland Security, after a five-year hunt for Osama, has finally brought charges against… Greg Palast. I kid you not. Send your cakes with files to the Air America wing at Guantanamo.

Though not just yet. Fatherland Security has informed me that television producer Matt Pascarella and I have been charged with unauthorized filming of a “critical national security structure” in Louisiana. …more

It has been a very good war for Big Oil — courtesy of OPEC price hikes. The five oil giants saw profits rise from $34 billion in 2002 to $81 billion in 2004, year two of Iraq’s “transition to democracy.”

But this tsunami of black ink was nothing compared to the wave of $113 billion in profits to come in 2005: $13.6 billion for Conoco, $14.1 billion for Chevron and the Mother of All Earnings, Exxon’s $36.1 billion. …more

Now that I’ve convinced you that the Peak Oil crowd is crackers, let me disagree with myself. We can’t understand the new class war unless we understand why oil, a certain kind at least, has in fact “peaked.”

We’ve long jumped over Hubbert’s predicted peak and, in 2006, rolled our SUVs right through the “culmination”- that is, used the last drops of the one-and-a-quarter-trillion barrels of liquid crude the good Earth can provide according to the Hubbert jeremiad. Furthermore, “The rise in the production of power from nuclear energy for the United States” ran out long before uranium’s five-thousand-year reign, despite Hubbert’s hope and prediction. …more

A new power plant every week for 20 years ... new nukes ... drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge ... Is this an energy policy ... or a payback for Bush's big campaign contributors? ... Newsnight sent Greg Palast to Texas to investigate some interesting coincidences... ...more